


(hot summer wind) (grave-dust and tears) puppies

by ProwlingThunder



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Accidental Soldiers, Death, Episode s01e07: The Day That Was, Klaus needs therapy, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychic Wolves, Seeing the dead, Soldiers, This is 100 Percent Not a Fix-It, True Love, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-19 15:13:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22712782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: This is both the best and worst moment Klaus has ever and will ever have:"I'm Dave."
Relationships: Dave/Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28
Collections: Psychic Wolves for Lupercalia





	(hot summer wind) (grave-dust and tears) puppies

There are wolves on the bus.

There were wolves in the tent, too, Klaus thinks, but between the mad scramble for pants and trying to tell them no, really, he didn't belong here-- he hadn't had a chance to think about it.

He has a chance to think about it now, on the bus, the Suitcase carefully hidden beneath his bench. There were wolves here, not as many as there were men, some of them draped over laps and some of them beneath benches and some in the isle, waiting. One, a thin and mottled thing, stringy with lack of rations, where someone is taking up more than their share of the floorspace, is wedged between a pair of much more burly wolves, one of them fitted out with bags and radio equipment.

Klaus didn't have a bag, just the suitcase and the fatigues someone had foisted on him, a gun he didn't think hadn't belonged to someone else-- the man sitting in the bench across from him kept reaching out to steady it, and Klaus knew enough about his own abilities to know--

So there were wolves on the bus. More men than wolves, some of them half-seated inside another's thigh, and Klaus isn't far enough into sobriety to make himself look a little less obviously.

He doesn't belong. He stands out. But then, Klaus has always stood out, reacting to things that aren't there, talking to people who don't exist.

He jumps, startled, when someone slides up and talks to him, and he hopes the man is alive when he responds back, "I'm Dave."

"Klaus." He thinks he's alive, though, when he accepts the offered hand, making sure the suitcase is nicely squared beneath his seat, he doesn't want to lose it, not now, he's in the middle of God only knows where, but he's pretty sure Dave is alive because Klaus can't touch the dead, and Dave laughs, quiet and so, so _nice,_ and drops a hand on a dusty-brown head when a cold-ass nose presses itself against the underside of his arm and okay, the wolf must be alive _too--_

"This is my sister, Ada."

Something in Klaus' chest squeezes, but there's a burst of something entirely and thoroughly unidentifiable behind his nostrils, and Klaus--

Klaus blinks, and reaches out with his other hand, and presses his fingers against Ada's maw in a rough scratch, and she leans into his touch.

Her scent doesn't resolve itself.

The wolves all know, and so the men all know, that Klaus is fresh in-country and doesn't belong, and Dave and Ada stick close to him like they can protect whatever they think he is, and Klaus...

It's not a mistake. Klaus has made a bunch of mistakes in his life, and falling in love with Dave and Ada isn't a mistake, it's _not,_ not when Ada buoys up between them, resonating mutual love and affection, not when Ada knows they both love each other, not when Klaus has never done a good thing in his long and miserable life, this is the only good thing--

It's not a mistake.

The mistake is, Klaus forgot the first rule of war.

In war, death doesn't discriminate.

He screams and calls for a Medic and tries his best to stop the bleeding, Ada in his peripheral, watching. After, her voice joins the chorus of longing, the two-toned echo of living and dead, and Klaus can't, he can't, he _can't--_

Klaus doesn't have tags of his own. They give him Dave's, because of Ada. They give him Ada, because Ada says, _no, (grave-dust and tears) mine, **mine.**_

She wont be parted from him and Klaus sips comfort from that when she licks his tears away, promising _(hot summer wind)_ doesn't blame him, wouldn't blame him, _(hot summer wind) (grave-dust and tears) puppies,_ a life after the war, and that.

It's okay, she tries to say.

Klaus almost believes her.

Ten months to the day, almost, give or take. Ten months since he first met Dave and Ada, he digs his fingers into her scruff and reaches out with shaking, bloodied hands and he goes-- ~~home.~~

Back.

He goes back.

Ada shoves herself close to him when he lays there and sobs on the sidewalk, and Klaus curls his arms around her like if he doesn't hold on tight she'll vanish too, and he can't smell anything through the burst of too-strong peppers and mothers-blood and it's the only thing that grounds him, now.


End file.
